It's a drizzly, early October afternoon in Woodstock, NY, and Kris Carr—radiant wellness guru, New York Times best-selling author, and green-juice queen—hops out of her Hyundai Santa Fe. Carr, 41—dressed in jeans and a leopard-print sweater, the pink scarf draped around her neck shielding her from the damp chill and setting off her trademark hot-pink lock of hair—leads the way to lunch at her favorite local spot, the Garden Cafe. For the past year, this vegan restaurant has served as her "kitchen away from home" while the farmhouse she and her husband are rebuilding with a "dream kitchen" is under construction.

The kitchen holds a sacred place in Carr's personal healing journey: It's where her beloved grandmother, a chef, would sit her on the counter as a little girl "while preparing deliciously unhealthy food" to soothe the schoolgirl's hurt feelings or celebrate a milestone. "It was a place of extreme comfort, where I felt very loved," says Carr. It's also where she taught herself about the nourishing properties of plant-based foods and, through exploration, learned to cook the "delicious medicine" that has sustained her body and spirit during the past 10 years as she's coexisted—thrived is her word—with an inoperable, incurable rare cancer that could get nasty at any time. Carr shares her "plant passionate" philosophy, tips on outfitting a kitchen to create delicious vegan meals, and-working with Whole Foods chef Chad Sarno—recipes for creating food that "has style, rhythm, texture, and glamour" in her recent book, Crazy Sexy Kitchen.

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Carr's backstory: In 2003, she was a 31-year-old actress-dancer-model, sassy and living in New York City, fueling her party-girl life with Burger King, Tasti D-Lite, and two cigarette chasers to every glass of wine. One morning she awoke feeling wretched, as if she'd spent the night getting knocked around in a boxing ring; the next day she experienced shortness of breath. Her doctor initially thought it was her gallbladder and ordered an abdominal ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis. It didn't. Instead, scans revealed a liver riddled with cancerous tumors, with 10 additional lesions on her lungs. The diagnosis: epithelioid hemangioendothelioma, a rare sarcoma affecting the lining of the blood vessels in Carr's liver and lungs-inoperable, incurable, with no established treatment protocol. But stable.

Along with a watch-and-wait approach, one doctor offered a suggestion: Focus on building your immune system through diet and lifestyle. Carr jumped at the chance to regain some control. At that moment, she later reflected, her doctor "planted the seeds for a personal revolution." Carr, doing a complete lifestyle about-face, became a "healing junkie"-or, as she prefers to call the business of keeping her body balanced and well, "the CEO of Save My [Life] Technologies, Inc."

One decade, one documentary (Crazy Sexy Cancer, which aired on TLC in 2007 and again in 2010 on the Oprah Winfrey Network), and five books later, Carr's calm yet joyful crazy sexy energy has drawn thousands to her lectures, workshops, website, and blog posts for her inspirational story about the power of the mind to reframe what seems frighteningly bleak—and the healing modalities that are accessible to everyone.

"I wouldn't be the first to use this metaphor, but we all have our own version of cancer," Carr says. "Something you want to change, that you feel powerless over; something dark that you want out of your life: It could be diabetes, it could be some extra weight, divorce, loss of a loved one, heart disease...anything you see as a struggle."

Ten years ago, Carr refused to give up, deciding cancer needed a crazy sexy makeover and turning her disease into a teacher, an opportunity, and a catalyst to transform her own life-and health. "If we all dig deep, we can use the unexpected to inspire us rather than tire us," she says. Here are her crazy sexy life lessons.

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Fear is a feeling, not a fact.Most of us shy away from what scares us. We tend to stay in our comfort zone, because what scares us—that unknown—creates anxiety and discomfort. But anxiety is a state of mind-what you think the fear is as opposed to what it really is. My guiding light during this 10-year journey has been to ask myself, Is it a fact or a feeling? For me it's been all about the power of the mind, of confronting what scares me and learning to make peace with things. Facing your fears is the only way you can understand your true power. Because what scares us is often a lot smaller than our perception of it.

If I had shied away from my fears—you know, "Make it go away," "I don't want to deal, I wanna eat Doritos!" "Let the white coats [MDs] fix it!"—my life would be a lot smaller than it is now.

I try to apply the same principles of how I've faced living with cancer to the rest of my life. Living is not about waiting for "the right time." It's always now. We often put our lives on hold; we press pause every day in so many ways. Cancer taught me not to do that—to just say, "[To heck with] it, go for it!" Something I ask myself all the time, and I try to really live by, is: Does this make me happy? This relationship, this job, this lifestyle—is it inspiring me, or is it tiring me? I don't know how long I have—just like you don't.

When you have a life-threatening disease, it's on your mind more often. So when I ask myself, Does this make me happy? it really matters to me. It doesn't mean I can't live in some degree of suffering from time to time—that's the human experience. But I'm a zealot for happiness. I constantly ask myself, Am I truly living?

A tie is as good as a win.This was a new concept for me, inspired by my dear friend [Hollywood producer] Laura Ziskin. She got me thinking about a tie, because she, like me, was living with an incurable disease. Ultimately it took her life. [Ziskin died of breast cancer in June 2011.] This concept is beautiful because it's about acceptance. Acceptance doesn't mean you throw yourself into a vat of Ben & Jerry's or a pack of cigarettes. It's about not always doing battle. Acceptance is a place where you can actually relax, and in that relaxation you're accepting yourself for the way you are right now. I'm not saying that you should give up. It doesn't mean we can't improve. Acceptance is a balance. And finding true balance is an active pursuit; you have to be willing to change as you grow, because what worked before might not work now.

Keep in touch with your passion.We all get many opportunities, but the problem is, we get so stuck on one thing, we put these blinders on, whether it's "I can only start living when X or Y happens" or "If I don't make it to this level in this particular career, then I'm a failure"—never even asking ourselves if we're actually happy in that career. A lot of folks forget to ask themselves, What lights me up? If what lights you up changes, be willing to change. Check in with yourself periodically to take a passion inventory. When you change your mind, you change your life. That's a fact.